Fillmore Noir 4
by YourFriendlyNeighborhoodGeek
Summary: Well, I made you wait long enough. Here is part four of Fillmore Noir. Please enjoy and review.
1. Chapter 1

You know what? Let's skip the bullshit. I know what you want to hear. You want to find out how it all happened. How two regular American middle school safety patrollers...got here.

Fine. OK, I'll tell you.

I'll tell you about the day everything changed.

The day certainly started out promising enough. Fillmore and I had ended up playing mediator between the Daring boy and Ned Needlemeyer. Not exactly our dream assignment, but compared to what came later... Anyway, Needlemeyer...he wasn't a very daredevil kid. He always had this scrungey, sort of fidgety look on him, like every thing in the world was a knife pointed directly at his chest. He was a scared kid, pure and simple, and he had no idea how to hide it. I still remember the name the Ashleys would sneer whenever he walked by...

"Nightmare Ned".

"This is totally unfair!" Todd whined in his sneering little pig voice as he sat in front of Fillmore's desk. TJ scowled as he leaned against the back wall. "I was playing that video game between classes. Is it my fault if Nightmare Ned here happens to show up?" Todd continued.

TJ scoffed. "You've been following him all day, Daring. Wherever Ned went to try and get away from you, you followed, just TRYING to get a rise out of him."

Ned shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't hard to see that he was hating this confrontation (really, given that it was Ned, he hated ANY confrontation). I glanced at Fillmore, and in one instant, it was agreed: we were going to end this here.

"OK, Daring," Fillmore began. "Let's pretend this IS just an accident. One problem: that game you're playing? Rated M. And baby, you don't look 17 to me.

We COULD give you a suspension for bringing contraband on school grounds...but tell you what: Hand over your handheld, and we'll call it even."

"WHAT? That's stealing!" Todd sputtered.

"It's confiscation. Come back at the end of the year, and we'll return it...just so long as you bring your Mom with you," I added, enjoying the little contortion of rage on Todd's face.

I glanced at Ned, trying my best to flash him a reassuring smile while Todd rummaged through his pockets. "I can't believe this..." he whined, before slamming his system on Fillmore's desk. Fillmore nodded, and TJ motioned Todd towards the door. "We're done here, Daring. Keep your nose clean."

Todd stomped towards the door. As he passed me, I could've sworn he said something about getting even...but before I could stop him, Ned grasped my hand and shook it.

"Thanks, Ingrid...I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but something about that game...all the dripping monsters, and the squealing, and that backwards music...it-it gets to me."

I withdrew my hand and took a moment to wipe Ned-sweat from it. "Uh...no problem, Ned. We're here to help. But listen: you've gotta toughen up some. I mean, you can't expect us to bail you out all the time, we're doing important work here. We can't handle every kid picking on you."

As if on cue, Vallejo burst from his office. "Fillmore! Third! I need to see you two...in private."


	2. Chapter 2

Vallejo being rattled means one of three things: 1) Administration was coming down on him, 2) Fillmore had just managed to break something particularly expensive, or 3)Something big was happening. Something bad.

Guess which number this was.

"Two lawn mowers had their blades removed...every sawblade taken out of woodshop...the automotive lab was COMPLETELY gutted..." Vallejo listed as he paced the floor.

"Basically, anything that could take off a kid's head if they ain't wearing safety equipment is being stolen. We've got no prints, no suspects...nothing but a buncha clubs asking where their supplies are and a shortage on excuses."

Fillmore looked over the photos of the crime scene: there was literally nothing out of place, aside from the missing objects. "We got any witnesses? Security camera pick up anything?"

Vallejo eased himself back into his seat. "Security cameras all blinked out at the same time: when they came back on, the stuff was gone. As for witnesses...Principal Buttsavage has requested we keep this on a low-profile."

I arched an eyebrow.

"I don't like it either, but he says to keep it a secret at all costs," Vallejo sighed.

So, we had a bevy of potentially dangerous objects missing, and we were forbidden from interacting with anyone else on the case.

Hell, we've puled off miracles before. "We're on it," Fillmore spouted, and off we went.

Our first stop was Wood shop. We scoped the entire place out. No windows had been jimmied open, the door hadn't been busted in...but we were able to find something.

I had to heft Fillmore up onto the teacher's desk, but his hunch was right: the screws had been removed from the ventilation duct in the ceiling. He gave it a quick tap, and it swung open. We had our point of entry. I recalled some blueprints of the school I had glanced at during a case a few weeks ago, and spotted a connection: each place that had been broken into was connected to the same ventilation system. None of the non-main campus buildings had been hit.

It stood to reason, then, that our perp would strike the next room connected to the system that contained something potentially dangerous. It was all a matter of reviewing what had been taken and what was left, then forming a stake-out.

Of course, the case wouldn't be that simple. Not at all.


	3. Chapter 3

We made our way to the cafeteria to puzzle out our next likely target. The automotive lab, the garage for the mowers, the wood shop... in the end, we narrowed it down to either the metalworking lab, or the glass-blowing lab as the next target. The cameras had all blinked out about three hours after the school locked up: 10 PM.

It looked like Fillmore and I were in for a little sleepover. Honestly, I could think of worse ways to spend a night.

Fillmore ended up taking the metalworking lab while I handled the glassblowing shop. We were about two rooms away from each other: wedged between them was "Computer Lab A", AKA 'the computers tech crew forgot to block so go ahead and play games', and our own office. We recruited TJ to go back and forth between us every hour, in case we needed back-up. In between checking on us, he'd roam the halls: the Future Rodeo Clowns of America were having their benefit hoe-down that night, so the doors to the gym were unlocked. TJ was to make sure our perp didn't take advantage of the situation to switch his gimmick.

Should we have waited for a different night? Maybe. But after what happened next..I don't want to think about what could've happened if we'd let even another day go by.

Things stayed quiet, for the most part. I tried to catch up with my favorite book series ("Roger and Me" Book 13, by Edward Valiant,) and ignore the hysterical ramblings of the clowns down the hall. (Ha ha haaaa, that falling trick gets better every time. Oh, you hid a whoopie cushion in your pants? How original.) TJ had nothing to report each time I saw him.

Until about 11:30 PM, when my walkie talkie crackled to life. "In...rid...Come in..."

I grabbed my walkie and jumped to my feet. "I read you, TJ. What's happening?"

"Breaking...door...everything...broken..."

I didn't wait to hear more. I rushed to the hall just in time to see a shadowy, four foot figure duck into the Safety Patrol office.

"X MIDDLE SCHOOL SAFETY PATROL! FREEZE!" I shouted as I flashed my badge. I'm not sure why we shout "Freeze": they never do. the figure ducked into our office: second floor, no doors to the rooms beside. I had them.

I took one step into the office and clicked on the flashlight, slowly panning over the room...until I reached the confiscated items locker. There, hunched over Todd's handheld...was Ned. "Please, don't shoot!" he whimpered.

I sighed, exasperated for a moment. Then, I just got angry. "Ned, what the HELL are you doing in here? Do you have ANY idea how big a deal we've got going on right now?"

Ned whimpered. "I tried to put it behind me, Ingrid, b-but I can't! I see the game every time I close my eyes! I-I had to get rid of it! Honest I did!"

I was in no mood for Ned's neuroses tonight. I grabbed him by the wrist, took the system, and began dragging him to the exit. "Y-you don't understand!" he stammered. "You CAN'T understand!"

I kept pulling him towards the exit...when we reached the computer lab. The door had been busted down. Peering inside...I saw that every computer had been smashed. Not just once, not twice: each computer had been reduced to a small pile of scrap.

I clutched Ned's wrist and whirled him around to look at the computer wreckage. "Did you do this?" I accused.

"He didn't." I whirled around to come face-to face with TJ, inadvertently twisting Ned's arm in the process.


	4. Chapter 4

TJ looked shaken. More shaken than I had ever seen him before. More shaken than that time he and that Randall kid had to shower for PE together. "No, I saw it...Ingrid, it was built like an adult, but..it moved...the way it moved, it COULDN'T have been a grown-up! Not with the way it was flipping through the air and stuff!"

Ned continued with his rant. "You can't know! You don't know what it's like to be afraid all the time! You don't know fear! YOU DON'T KNOW FEAR!"

Interrupting that mental breakdown, I clamped a hand over Ned's mouth: the rodeo clowns had stopped. There wasn't any music coming from the gym down the hall.

The only sound was the squeaking of an open vent, coming from the metalworking shop. I slowly moved to the doorway... empty. There was no sign of Fillmore anywhere.

Just an open register, hanging by a single screw, swinging back and forth.

I gave Ned's wrist to TJ, telling him to get Ned out of there and to call the police. I slowly made my way to the vent. I took a deep breath...and crawled inside.

The last thing I hear as I disappeared into the very bowels of the school was Ned calling: "You don't know fear."

I got the feeling we were about to get acquainted at last.

As I crawled deeper and deeper into the system, I began to hear things. A groan here. A chuckle there. And always, always a constant chattering.

It was disturbing. It was unsettling. It was..funny? Why was I smiling? I was crawling through the belly of the school to face who-knows-what, and I was...I was giggling?

I half-crawled, half-stumbled forward, barely able to keep from cracking up. My eyes began to get adjusted to the dark...and I saw I was crawling through a strange purple haze.

Instinctively, I put my shirt over my nose, and began to breathe deeply: almost instantly, my mind began to clear. I shook out the last few cobwebs, and pressed forward: the chattering, the giggling, and the moaning were growing louder.

I reached a dead end, and peered into the nearest grate: It was somewhere in the basement, some archaic part of the school long forgotten by everyone. All around were piles of what looked like...plastic soup cans? Whatever they were, they were leaking purple gas.

And there, in the center of the room, was Fillmore. Done up in ridiculous clown make-up. His arms and legs tied to some sort of twisted heap of metal he was straddling, gently rocking back and forth, back and forth.

I kicked the grate in and hopped down,crushing a few of the canisters beneath my feet, releasing a puff of purple gas. I slowly walked over to Fillmore, who lifted his head unsteadily, giggling mindlessly all the while.

"Heeeey, Ingrid..." he snorted. I looked over the device he was tied to. It seemed to be...some kind of rocking horse, made out of buzz saw blades and car parts.

Fillmore coughed a bit, and focused as hard as he could on me, straining to communicate each word. "Ingrid...you gotta...go... get out of here, before he gets...you too..."


	5. Chapter 5

I tried my best to calm him as I fumbled with his restraints. Suddenly... the cackling, the mad laughter I had heard in the vents started up again.

"I couldn't let it happen," a voice above me said. I instantly looked... only to see shadows.

"After what happened to all the children of my world.. I couldn't let YOU all waste your youths, no matter HOW ugly you all are!"

I whirled around, trying to get a bead on where the voice was coming from. "Even WE never came up with anything as fiendish as...'on-line games'!"

A second voice pitched in: higher, falsetto. "Yeah, our kids had to rot their minds the old fashioned way!"

More chuckling. "But that doesn't matter. We're here now! With tools from the boring old school and a little something I pilfered from Dipwing to put a smile on your face..."

Dipwing...? I wondered.

Suddenly, it landed in front of me. Easily five feet, six inches. Watery eyes the size of watermelons. A strange, bony mouth- a beak? Breaking into a huge, horrible, toothy grin. Giant white feathers ruffling in the cool of the AC passing through the room. A rotten banana with crude plastic pieces haphazardly shoved into its rotting flesh. A nightmare, all wrapped up in a garish, purple and red polyester outfit.

"...It's PLAY-TIME!"

I jumped back, my mind still trying to come to terms with this Lovecrafitan horror in front of me. He reached behind his back, and produced a haphazard collection of exposed wires and batteries, clad in horrible, hobbled-together clothing.

"See? I made you a dolly!" The thing said, as his creation began to spark.

The thing tried to shove the doll into my arms, something that almost inevitably would've ended in me being the unwilling host to an unhealthy amount of voltage. I crawled backward as much as I could, until I hit the wall.

"Don't wanna play with your dolly? We could always try something else..." he uttered, slowly advancing on me.

My mind raced, my eyes darting back and forth to find a solution. Only one thing caught my eye: a canister that was leaking green rather than purple. I was able to make out a faded label: "Tear Gas".

"H-how about..." I stalled, reaching for the canister. Moments before the thing was upon me, I jammed the canister into its chest. "..CATCH?"

In an instant, the creature was engulfed in a stinging green cloud, desperately trying to claw his eyes out. Without a moment to lose, I grabbed a wrench left on the floor, and drove it into the thing's face. His beak splintered and split down the middle, his teeth scattering all over the floor. He wavered a moment, before collapsing in a heap.

Hours later, Fillmore was beside me, coughing out the rest of the laughing gas that had saturated his lungs. The Rodeo Clowns were found scattered throughout the school, each left with a toy that, given a bit more time, would've almost certainly proven lethal.

A black van came for the creature, which was wheeled out of the school with a sheet over its face. I had a hard time telling whether it was alive or dead. We spoke briefly with some law enforcement agents -a slender woman with silver hair and an Officer Bluestone- and just like that, it was over. The creature was gone, the school could return to normal.

But it never would.

This story, this little nightmare... this is how all our troubles began.


	6. Epilogue

EPILOGUE 1:

"Hi, Uncle Conrad? I need some help. I've got some safety patrol officers who're really mean. I need them replaced. Who've you got?

...Hm? Who's Kim Possible? Look, whoever is fine, just send her over. Thanks, Uncle Conrad!"

EPILOGUE 2:

"Alright, Mirage: what have we figured out from our guest? Is he one of ours?"

"No, sir. He's more like what we saw in Anaheim: more flesh and blood than ink and paint."

"Hmmm...I don't like this. That Kari girl goes to this school, doesn't she? We don't need anything jogging her memory..."

"With all due respect, sir, I think I can handle this problem personally. The, ah, the upper echelon of the Illuminati doesn't need to concern themselves with this."

"I like your spirit, Bluestone...but, just to be safe, bring Mirage with you. Besides, she'll show you how to operate the device. Don't worry, it's simple: simply get the girl in place, and the AUTO OS should handle the rest."

"...Very good, sir. Thank you."

"Bluestone, you're dismissed. Mirage, A moment, if you please."

"Yes, sir?"

"I want you to keep an eye on our dear Mr. Bluestone. Watch him, guide him, make sure he's not..falling in with an unsavory element."

"With pleasure, Mr. Tr-"

"Ha ha! No need for such formality, Mirage.

It's Richard. Call me Richard."

EPILOGUE 3:

"So, uh, boss: why'd you go with the clown?"

"Because, Lawson, I think Negaduck would've demolished the school. At any rate, it was a wonderful test of these powers...

Ha ha! Thank you, my friends on the other side!"

"Uh...yeah...so, um, what's the next move, sir?"

"Sonny, you know Fillmore better than any of us. You know he has the potential to be an obstacle to my plans. I won't...I can't go back into that rock. I can't. But maybe...if we can get him and the Illuminati..."

"...Sir?"

"It's coming together. It's all falling into place. Yes, I'll take care of Fillmore personally, boys. Take the night off. If you'll excuse me, I have to prepare: I need to contact a Ms. Dominique Destine... Yes, so, so much to do..."


End file.
